There was a small room just off the kitchen with a pullout couch, a chest of drawers and a computer desk surrounded by bookshelves. A curtained door led out to the patio. Another opened to a small bathroom.
“Drop your bag and I’ll show you the hacienda. You can change in here rather than the pool house. And don’t forget to grab one of my towels out of the chest. They’re nicer than the ones we put out on the deck.” She walked over to the chest and opened it to show him his choices, then reached in and pulled out a small half-robe, which she put on but did not cinch.
“I leave these all over the house. Sometimes I forget myself and walk around in my bathing suit. Or less. Not very ladylike. Of course, nobody would notice with this crowd. Are you shocked by some of the guests? Things are pretty casual in Miami Beach. It’s like Rio. Cuban girls, especially, like to flaunt it. Suicidal, when you think how jealous Cuban men are.”
“These are all friends?”
“Not hardly. People from the office, to be sure. But mostly clients and a few neighbors I invite so they can’t complain about the party. Old college trick. Wouldn’t be surprised if there were one or two call girls out there. Men like their arm candy.”
She sat on the couch and used her towel to dry her feet.
“I should leave some flip flops or sandals around too. I’m liable to break my neck slipping on the stairs with wet feet. This will have to do. Come on, let me act like the nouveau riche I am and show you around.”
It was a beautiful house, with an open floor plan that led to several spectacular rooms. The dining room featured an octagonal recessed ceiling with hand-painted panels and deep burgundy walls. A large glass-topped table with scrolled wood bases was surrounded by Tuscan-style chairs with green velvet backs and woven chenille fronts. A gold-framed painting of Venice sat on one wall opposite a triple wide china closet. Across from the living area was a family room with a mahogany pool table and antique bar. Through that room was a home theater, with lounge chairs at floor level and plush sofas on an upper tier. Another door led into a library with Caribbean rosewood flooring and recessed tin panels in the ceiling. A large fireplace framed with a hunter-green lambrequin dominated the room. Each room made a statement and stopped just short of ostentation. Much like the woman, Scarne thought.
“You have exquisite taste. I liked the Richard Prince in the library.”
“I adore him. And thank you for the compliment. I did most of the decorating myself.”
They emerged into the front foyer where a huge iron chandelier hovered above a mosaic floor. They took the marble staircase to the second floor.
“There are four bedrooms, but I’ll just show you the best. Mine.”
She led him to a large master bedroom at the rear of the house. The room was done in all yellows and celadon. A bright floral print for the draperies matched the accent pillows on the king-sized bed and its Louis XVI-style headboard. A door opened out to a small terrace where the decorative staircase spiraled down to the pool area. Scarne spotted the two men who had come off the boat earlier. They were looking up at them.
“Alana, who are those two men standing down at the bar? The blond and the swarthy one.”
She looked down. Her good cheer evaporated.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I know them. They work for us. But they usually don’t come to my parties. I didn’t see them come in.”
“They swam from that boat. Thought they might be crashers.”
“They tend to be loose cannons.”
“I think I might know the blond fellow from somewhere.”
She looked at Scarne with a funny cast to her eyes.
“I’ll have to introduce you,” she said, starting down the stairs. “I’ll meet you at the bar after you’ve changed.”
CHAPTER 30 – A HELLUVA PARTY
Scarne peeled off from Alana at the bottom of the stairs and went to change. Once outside again, he threw his towel over a vacant chair near the deep end of the pool. He waited while a bare-breasted woman doing a backstroke glided past, then dove in and swam the length of the pool underwater. Then he did a normal lap on the way back and climbed out, refreshed. As he toweled off he headed toward the bar, where Alana was in animated conversation with the two men from the boat.
“Those guys are bad news.” It was Goetz, who had fallen in step with Scarne, martini firmly in hand. “Ballantrae’s Mutt and Jeff.”
“What do they do?” Scarne asked. He shortened his stride. Goetz walked like a penguin; only his legs below his knees appeared to move
“Damned if I know. They’re listed as brokers, same as me. But I hardly ever see them in the office. Thick as thieves, those two. Pair of faggadoons. Don’t give me a look. Everybody knows and nobody cares in this town. But they give me the creeps. I’d like to know how they make their dough. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out how Ballantrae makes all its money.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can’t be from the brokerage business. Retail, investment banking, institutional and research are all burning money. But the well never seems to run dry. And it should, with the rates we pay out on our C.D.’s. They’re way over market. I ask them how they do it and I get a lot of malarkey about overseas investments, hedges and proprietary computer trading. Like we can corner the market on that stuff. But what the hell, I’ll leave it up to the lawyers. I’m just an asset gatherer. They call us ‘financial consultants,’ but all we do is get people to deposit their money. Most of it goes into those C.D.’s. If they buy stocks from us, it’s accidental.”
It came out “ashidental.” There wasn’t much olive room left in his glass. Scarne wanted to draw him out further but they had reached the bar. Alana said something sharply in German to the blond man, then flashed a smile.
“Jake, I’d like you to meet Jesús Garza and Christian Keitel. I told them you thought they were crashers.”
“You gringos always worry about Cubans jumping off a boat,” Garza said.
They all laughed and shook hands. Garza’s accent was barely noticeable.
“Be nice, Jesús,” Alana said. “Jake was just looking out for me. Besides, I think he won half the company from Victor in a golf match.”
“You are a marked man, Mr. Scarne,” Keitel said “Victor doesn’t like to lose, at anything.”
He looked at Alana as he said it. Then he looked at Goetz.
“Tony, you beat us out again for the quarter. How do you do it?”
“The question is, ‘How do you guys even get close to my production?’ I bust my balls, while you guys jet around the world and work on your tans.”
Garza slapped the little broker on the shoulder.
“We’d love to tell you, Tony, but then we’d have to kill you.”
He turned to Scarne.
“Tony is getting nervous. We’re nipping at his heels. He’s afraid we’ll get a bigger bonus or win one of the incentive trips.”
“What the hell do you need a trip for,” Goetz snapped. “You’ve been everywhere. Except maybe the office.”
“Enough shop talk,” Alana interjected. “I’m famished. Will you get me a Chardonnay, Jake? I’ll fix us plates and we’ll eat by the fountain.”
She walked away, greeting people as she went. There was a low growl from a powerful marine engine. Scarne looked out at the water. A sleek cigarette boat with a large black tarp stretched amidships pulled up just offshore. He ordered two Chardonnays. Goetz looked at his two rivals.
“Well, if I have to stand next to a couple of boobs, I can do better than you guys. I think I’ll go to the pool and do some research on silicone. One thing’s for sure, Alana can throw a helluva fuckin’ party.”
After he walked off, Garza said, “Tony is a malestar – a pain – but he can produce. Lands a lot of Jewish money. There is still plenty of it in Miami.”
“Who do you guys go after?”
“Oh, we have a big European and South American clientele. Some Middle Eastern. We travel more than T
ony. Our pickings aren’t as easy as his.”
“I guess you do pretty well, to judge by your rowboat out there.”
“Oh that. Sorry to disappoint you, but we don’t own it. We belong to a boat club. Allows us to use a variety of boats for an annual fee that covers a certain number of hours. Anything from skiffs to yachts. When we bring them back, we’re done with them. Don’t have the time or the patience to own a boat. We have better things to do than scrape barnacles.”
“Well, it’s a nice boat. What is it, a 50-foot Hatteras?”
“You’ve got a good eye, Jake. It’s a 50-footer, but not a Hatteras. It’s a Sealine. Hatteras would have cost more hours, and the Sealine is a nice craft.”
“That’s not a bad way to do it,” Scarne admitted. “They say the two best days of your life are when you buy a boat and when you sell it. What’s the name of the club?”
“Yacht Net,” Keitel said. “Although some of their boats, like that one out there, don’t qualify as yachts. They have branches and berths in marinas on both coasts. You interested? The local office is in Key Biscayne.”
“Maybe sometime in the future. Well, I’d better find Alana.”
“Nice to meet you, Jake,” Keitel said. “Good luck with your investigation.”
Scarne nodded and walked away. He could feel their eyes on his back. Despite the friendly boating banter, he knew something wasn’t right about them. He’d lay good money that they barely knew the difference between a stock and a bond. And then there was the mention of the investigation. That was a slip. There would be no reason that a couple of ordinary brokers would know why he was in Miami. Certainly Ballantrae and Alana wouldn’t spread it around to just anybody. That meant that Garza and Keitel were in the inner circle privy to very sensitive material.
Alana was sitting at the table with several people. Scarne was relieved to see that the women all had their tops on. The food Alana had selected for him was delicious. For the next 20 minutes he ate and chatted. The men talked real estate and football; the women, fashion and diets. All were loud and animated and had uniformly atrocious table manners. The combination of braggadocio, spittle and suntan lotion eventually got to Scarne. He turned to Alana, who was disinterestedly listening to a woman extolling her bikini wax.
“Excuse me, but I think I’ll go jump in the bay.”
The woman who was talking to Alana said, very seriously, “You’re not supposed to go in the water right after eating. You could drown.”
“One can only hope,” Scarne replied.
The woman looked confused. Alana suppressed a laugh. As he walked to the pool, she caught up to him.
“It’s a pretty shallow crowd. Believe it or not, I have to do some more mingling. Do you mind if I ignore you for a while?”
“You don’t have to babysit me. I’ll be fine.”
The party picked up. Some people were dancing. A woman screamed as she was pushed into the pool. Two men jumped in and all three began tussling amid much laughter. One of the men twirled a bikini top above his head. The woman kept jumping up for it, her ample breasts jouncing in the man’s face. Many of the older people seemed to have left. He couldn’t see Thomas Harris. Probably departed with plenty of ideas for table fare for Hannibal Lechter.
Scarne found a chaise in the sun and dropped his towel. He dove into the pool, came out on the bar side and ordered another glass of wine. Then he went to stretch out on his chair. It didn’t take him long to spot all the hookers. Their bodies were firmer, they laughed too loudly at their companions’ jokes and smoked incessantly. Scarne noted cynically that girlfriends were less effusive and wives tended to ignore their husbands. They had landed their fish. He wondered what, if anything, Alana saw in these people. Business, probably. Or maybe they appealed to her wild, table-dancing, side.
Garza, Keitel and Goetz were standing by the pool, engaged in a lively conversation. The stocky broker was wagging a finger at Garza. Scarne was amused to note that though the animated Goetz was swaying, the hand holding the martini glass – which even from a distance looked green with accumulated olives – was on a relatively even keel. He thought about going over, especially when he saw Alana join the group, but decided that he wanted to get Goetz all to himself for a while. Besides, the food, sun and wine began to do their work. He put his head back and started to doze off.
He was in that twilight zone that just preceded sleep when he heard the shot. He was instantly alert. There was no mistaking it. From the sound of it, a high-power rifle. Then he heard real screams, followed by the sound of crashing platters and broken glass. All the time the band played on, but finally one instrument stopped, then another until the music died out discordantly. People scrambled out of the pool and cautiously moved backwards, some pointing uncertainly into the water.
Scarne immediately looked for Alana. She, too, was staring into the pool. Goetz had disappeared and Garza and Keitel were prone on the pool deck, low to the ground, like cats. They were looking out at the bay. Scarne turned to see a glint of reflected light under the tarp of the cigarette boat he’d noticed earlier. He came out of his chair and reached Alana in three strides, propelling her violently into the pool. Just before they hit the water he felt more than heard the zinging passage of a bullet, followed by the sound of the shot and a loud splintering crash. Then they were plunging together to the bottom and came face to face with Tony Goetz.
He was lying on his back, arms outstretched, eyes wide open. He looked surprised. Scarne was momentarily disoriented by what appeared several other “eyes” bobbing near the man’s head. They were green and had red centers. Scarne thought he was hallucinating. Then he realized they were olives. Goetz had taken his martini glass with him, still clasped in his hand. Alana pushed toward the surface. He grabbed her and signaled her to stay behind him. She put her arms around his neck and he surfaced at the side of the pool. Peering cautiously toward the bay, he saw the cigarette boat roaring away at full throttle. Garza and Keitel were sprinting to the bulkhead. They dove in, swam to their own boat and were soon in hot pursuit.
“I’ll have to take your broker-training course, Alana.”
She didn’t answer. Her arms were shaking. He loosened her grip and climbed out of the pool, then pulled her up.
“Go inside,” Scarne said.
“What about Tony?”
“I’ll take care of it. Call the police.” It would be redundant, he knew. Cell phones were popping out all over. “Go on,” he said, shaking her. “Now!”
After she left he dove in the pool. There was still surprisingly little blood in the water. Scarne put his arms under Goetz and kicked to the surface, thinking, well, I’ve got him alone now. The cocktail glass came out of the hand and twirled toward the bottom. By the time he got to the side of the pool, a few guests had pulled themselves together. Several men and a woman – one of the ones he knew to be a call girl – jumped in to help. Hookers had some sand, he thought. The intrepid little band, with the help of the bartender, managed to haul Goetz onto the deck. The girl began mouth-to-mouth as the bartender compressed Goetz’s chest.
“C’mon buddy, you can make it,” the man said. Blood immediately seeped between his fingers. No water came out of his mouth with the compressions.
“No, he can’t,” Scarne said. “Don’t bother.”
He put a finger on the carotid. Nothing. He ripped open Goetz’s shirt. There was a small hole below the breastbone. He rolled the body partially over. There was no exit wound. Not a military or steel-jacketed round, which would have gone straight through. More likely a hunting slug that mushroomed. From the size of the entry wound and sound of the shot, probably a high-velocity .243 or 6 mm. Small but devastating. The shock of 80 grains of lead and soft polymer tip traveling at 3,300 feet per second blossoming to a sudden stop internally would be enough to kill. The pressure wave alone could break the spine and stop the heart. Goetz was dead before he hit the pool. No chance to breathe in water. The seeping blood came from the pulverize
d heart.
“He’s been shot. The police will want to talk to everyone. No one should leave. The cops wouldn’t like that. They won’t be interested in recreational drugs or your occupation.” He winked at the call girl; she winked back. “Only what you saw or heard. But some of you may want to put more clothes on.”
“Somebody hand me a towel,” he said.
When one was offered he placed it over the dead man’s face. Not strictly procedure, but the hell with that. He had liked the little guy. Some others apparently did as well. He heard a women sobbing and commiserating male sounds. Probably co-workers.
He heard a man say, “Jesus, they got Flipper. I was right next to it.”
The dolphin ice sculpture on the buffet table had been decapitated. Some people were still pulling shards out of their hair. One hysterical woman was screaming “I don’t match” repeatedly. In her panic she had put on someone else’s bikini top.
Scarne heard the first siren. He looked down at the dripping body.
“You were right, Tony. She throws a helluva party.”
***
“What’s the use, Jesús? We’ll never catch the fucking thing. It must have 10 miles an hour on us.”
Not to mention that the speedboat was already moving away at high clip by the time he and Garza even climbed aboard their Sealine, Keitel reflected.
“Knots, Christian,” Garza said. “We’re on the water. The term is knots, which means nautical miles per hour. He has us by eight knots, maybe.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
Keitel was keenly aware they were on the water as both boats raced up the crowded river, scattering pleasure craft before them. The only knot was in his stomach and he felt that familiar twinge in his tailbone. I’d rather be shot, he thought, than endure another crazy boat ride with Jesús.
“We might get lucky, if one of the bridges is down,” Garza said, ignoring the horn blasts and angry shouts of boats they nearly swamped. “Plus he only just realized we were chasing him amid all these goddamn boats.”
And, in fact, a highway drawbridge loomed ahead, and it was closing. The speedboat would have to slow, Keitel realized, and so, thank God, would they. He reached under a tarp, opened a storage locker and pulled out an M-14 rifle. Bracing himself as best he could against a railing (well, they do call it a gunwale, he mused) he tried to get the speedboat in the crosshairs of the 10-power telescopic sight. But with both boats bouncing and swerving it was virtually impossible. But when they slowed, he’d have them. He would put 20 rounds into the speedboat and its occupants in 10 seconds.
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